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Debra Fischer Quotes

American - Scientist | -

There's no doubt that the search for planets is motivated by the search for life. Humans are interested in whether or not life evolves on other planets. We'd especially like to find communicating, technological life, and we look around our own solar system, and we see that of all the planets, there's only one that's inhabited.

Life Search Doubt Look Find Solar

Before 1995, the only planets we knew about were the planets in our solar system.

Solar Solar System System Planets

Ultimately, what we're looking for in the long run is to find other Earth-like planets.

Looking Long Find Run Planets Other

I hope that vigorous space exploration continues and that humankind will have a space station that resides between Earth and the moon. Outside the gravitational field of Earth, we could launch robotic spacecraft to other destinations in our solar system.

Hope Space Moon Exploration Earth

The building blocks of life are readily available throughout the universe.

Life Building Universe Available

Further ahead, I'd like to see tiny spacebots - smaller than your cell phone - travel outside our solar system to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. By keeping the mass of those spacebots low, we could more easily accelerate them.

Travel Cell Phone Phone Ahead Solar

The first exoplanet to be found around a sun-like star was discovered in 1995, just two years before I began studying exoplanet detection.

First Studying Two Years Star Just

Generally speaking, exoplanets can be any size, and they are found in a wide range of orbits. Some have massive gas atmospheres; others are smaller with an icy or rocky composition.

Others Size Composition Speaking Gas

One of the first thoughts I had, when doing early exoplanet research, was that Earth and its many companions seemed very different from the planetary systems we were detecting.

Research Thoughts Doing Early Earth

In 1999, my team discovered that the star Upsilon Andromedae was circled by three gas-giant planets - the first distant multiplanet system ever found. That same year, other researchers observed the first 'transit' of an exoplanet - a planet blocking out a small fraction of the starlight as it passes in front of the star.

Team Small Year Three First Out

Prebiotic chemistry on other worlds is going to be common. Plenty of small rocky planets will have similar chemistry. It's almost a given.

Small Will Chemistry Going Common

If few worlds have microbial life, it dramatically reduces the chances that more complex organisms exist.

Life More Complex Exist Chances Few

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